Raimondo raises support, while protesters raise their voices/ Poll

PROVIDENCE — While close to 300 women cheered wildly at state General Treasurer Gina Raimondo’s acknowledgment that she thinks about “being the first female governor this state’s ever seen,” hundreds of...

PROVIDENCE — While close to 300 women cheered wildly at state General Treasurer Gina Raimondo’s acknowledgment that she thinks about “being the first female governor this state’s ever seen,” hundreds of seething public employees — and their union leaders — protested outside her fundraiser Thursday night.

Earlier in the day, Raimondo posted this message on her Facebook page: “Across the country, women leaders have stood up for their beliefs and made the call for change. Tonight that call comes to Rhode Island … . We’re celebrating Women Changing Rhode Island.”

But as the women arrived at the Roger Williams Park Casino for her fundraiser, protesters wielding signs that said — “$53 million in first year to Wall Street friends” — shouted at them: “Don’t go in. Don’t go in … Gina’s a crook; she cooked the books.”

At least one of the protesters was arrested after refusing Providence police orders to move farther away from the entrance, to a lawn across the street where the other protesters were noisily, but obediently gathered.

At the podium later in the evening, Raimondo told the crowd of mostly women who surrounded her: “Listen, they have a right to be there. They have a right to their opinions.”

But, “You know, when I took office, we had a pension crisis … . And we did the best we could. I know that there’s people upset about it. But I’ll tell you this … because of what we did, when I walk by protesters, I can look them in the eye and say: ‘Your pension is going to be there. And it’s not going [to be] the heartache of Central Falls and Detroit.’”

But that was not how state Department of Human Services employees Joan Masse and Heidi Brown and Cranston teacher Holly Scripsach described the dramatic 2011 pension overhaul for which Raimondo has been given credit in some circles, blame in others.

Said Masse: “She’s broken the promise.”

Echoed Lizbeth Larkin, a seventh grade social studies teacher and president of the Cranston Teachers’ Alliance: “We paid dearly … . We gave large percentages [of pay] over our careers and to change it at this stage of the game, when we had 25, 27-plus years in … completely altered any kind of plans anyone had. It actually just pulled the rug out from me.”

As the protest took shape earlier in the day, Rhode Island Federation of Teachers field representative James Parisi said the women within his union who initiated the protest felt they needed to counter the glowing image that the new super-PAC known as “American LeadHERship” was conveying about Raimondo.

In fundraising appeals on its website, the new PAC describes Raimondo as a “born leader on a meteoric rise.”

Parisi said “some of the women” within his union were unhappy this super-PAC was extolling Raimondo “as a pro-woman candidate … when her pension reforms negatively impacted women more than men.”

“It was a pension cut for a lot of women out there, and that is not a good thing in terms of being a pro-woman candidate,” he said.

But the protest drew men and women, state employees, teachers and local police officers and firefighters with their union affiliations emblazoned across their T-shirts.

Rhode Island’s public-employee unions challenged the law in court. The case is in court-ordered mediation.

It was unclear how much Raimondo, who has not yet announced whether she will run for governor, raised from Thursday night’s event. But it was clearly more of an opportunity for her to display support among women — who are a critical voting bloc — than a fundraising opportunity.

(Raimondo leads all of her potential opponents in fundraising, with $2.1 million in her campaign account, during the quarter that ended on June 30. Another quarter closes on Monday.)

Her “Women Changing Rhode Island” fundraiser had 48 co-hosts, including: Merrill Sherman, former president of Bank Rhode Island and, more recently, a special master in U.S. District Court overseeing foreclosure cases; Linda D’Amario Rossi, former director of the state’s Department of Children, Youth & Families; Providence Councilwoman Sabina Matos; and Andrea Iannazzi, the chairwoman of the Cranston School Committee and daughter of Donald Iannazzi, the longtime and now retired business manager for Local 1033 of the Laborers’ International Union, who still runs the union’s health fund.

Among her themes: “We need strong leadership to solve these problems that have been festering for decades … and we can’t even get common-sense gun control through the legislature to protect our kids.”

“We need leadership that puts our families and our children ahead of corporate profits … leadership that puts good paying jobs ahead of insider deals … and we need to put the lives of our kids ahead of the NRA.” (Cheers.)

Should she run for governor, Raimondo faces a potential Democratic primary contest against Providence Mayor Angel Taveras who has enlisted a high-profile woman to co-chair his finance committee: Lianne Paolino.

The wife of a former Providence mayor, Joseph Paolino, Lianne Paolino hosted a fundraiser for Taveras at their Newport home on Tuesday, on the day after her husband hosted a $500-a-person fundraiser for him at Circe restaurant.

Taveras faced his own protesters during the Monday fundraiser at the Providence restaurant. His critics were reportedly upset that the mayor would not open the Davey Lopes Pool this past summer.